Today is what would be the Pop-artist extraordinaire Keith Haring’s 54th birthday. He plastered NYC, its clubs and subway with his now iconic spaceships, whimsically dancing people, barking dogs and overall stoked to be alive attitude. His work at first seems too simplistic to produce the energy that it does, but that was the beauty of his talent. The power of his simple lines spoke volumes to people, and still do today. His drawings turned him into a modern day caveman, or even better, an Egyptian scribe.

If our civilization was ever destroyed and all they found were Keith Haring’s work, how would those that followed view our society? What would be conveyed to this new generation of life on Earth? The only thing bad about his art is that it was accessible, and he was treated unfairly for it. Maybe everyone was jealous of his famous friends, which included ties to Andy Warhol, Grace Jones, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Madonna… or maybe it was the way he was able to capture early 80s New York. Either way he didn’t care:

“The public needs art — and it is the responsibility of a ‘self-proclaimed artist’ to realize that the public needs art, and not to make bourgeois art for a few and ignore the masses.”

Happy Birthday Keith Haring! Scope out his artwork below, and be glad he made it for all of us to enjoy.